Moose Mountain Clean up Day…..

Last Sunday marked the beginning of a new era for the Calgary area mountain bike community. After being asked by the Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) to tear down an existing trail, local freeriders pulled together to clean up “Jean Guy”. The reasoning behind the teardown was that the trail passed through a large meadow within the ‘Zone 1 Animal Habitat Area’ which is the most an important animal feeding ground, a reasonable request. In return, the SRD has decided to “turn a blind eye” for the time being on other trails on the mountain such as “Toothless” and “Satan’s Little Fluffers” as well as a few others.
The teardown had been going on for a couple weeks with a handful of people showing up here and there and helping to rip out the stunt work. Marky D and I showed up one evening to help out and were astonished at the amount of wood that still needed to be carried out. So out of sheer laziness on our part we decided that something had to be done to get more people out to help. What better way to do that than to make an event out of it? We got in touch with friends and shops in town and gathered an assortment of “enticements” ranging from bike shop giveaways to free beer and burgers.
With all the prizes sorted out, all that was left was to sit and wait to see how many people would show up to help. To our surprise the turn out was great! With 40 plus people signed up on the prize list we estimated that there were around 50 people helping cart out all the lumber, not bad considering the work was back-breaking. With such a good turnout we were able to finish our task in just over an hour. Unreal!
I would personally like to thank each and every one of you who came out to help in any way. I would also like to congratulate all the sponsors for supporting the freeride community, Calgary Cycle, Pinkbike, COP, Sleemans, CMBA, and the Bike Shop. More than anything, I’d like to give props to Paul Sudlow and Bruce Robertson and all those involved with the CMBA for undertaking the enormous task of working with the Sustainable Resource Development toward sanctioning freeride trails on Moose Mountain. Without that initiative, I don’t think anything of this magnitude could have been possible. Several people have started the ball rolling and the end result is promising for all of us who are tiring of commuting to and from BC just to ride our bikes. If this is the kind of turnout we get for tearing down a trail, imagine what’s possible for a maintenance day or even a building day sometime in the future.

And the result at one of the stunts.

Before Clean up: Animals sad , riders happy


After Clean up: Animals happy, riders sad


Pictures courtesy Ewan Nicholson - www.ewannicholson.ca



Stay tuned to the CMBA website for more info on Moose Mountain.